


Let Go

by tokiNOOO (tokino)



Series: Day by Day [3]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, First Time, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mpreg, Pregnancy, Unplanned Pregnancy, levi has got some explaining to do
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-04
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-04-02 21:11:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4073995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tokino/pseuds/tokiNOOO
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Levi comes clean to Erwin. Meanwhile, Eren and Jean come to an understanding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve searched for updated SNK story timelines trying to figure out how much time would have passed since Levi Did The Thing and the most recent chapter, and I’ve come up with zip diddly doo, so let’s just say ~three months because it suits my purposes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My (ongoing) hiatus is mostly due to real life issues such as school and health problems, and also because I got so frustrated trying to guess what Erwin's plan was that I decided to just wait the arc out instead of bullshitting my own version.
> 
> I have zero plans to try to construct my own version of canon with this story--from this point it's mostly going to take place during a brief downtime/pause, because I don't hate myself enough to try to guess wtft Isayama has planned next ever again in my life (!)
> 
> On a more positive note, hope all of you are prepared for the tiny eruri bby (!!) THERE IS A TINY BUN IN THE LEVI OVEN

Levi stared at Kenny’s corpse without seeing it for what it truly was. His sense of time lapsed, and suddenly he was back in the dirty, cramped room where his mother died, where Kenny first barged into his life as rudely as he would the second. That period was one great mass of anger and hurt and the primal, ravenous urge to survive, to kill if it meant he and his loved ones could live.

And all these years later there he was, alone, gazing back into the dark unseeing eyes of the man who’d abandoned him in that cutthroat world. When he was a child he had never felt any particular amount of closeness or affection for Kenny in the brief time they lived together, and yet, he wasn’t sure if he could muster up the energy to resent or hate him, not even now, not even after all that Kenny had done.

Levi passed a hand in front of Kenny’s face despite knowing it would yield nothing other than a slight burn against his palm from the evaporating titan blood. That was just like him—to say his piece and then die before Levi could say his.

“You pruny piece of _shit_ ,” Levi muttered, rising up to his feet unsteadily. His entire body ached, from his head to his chest to his feet. “Who’d want you for an uncle anyway?”

Or a godfather. The thought sprang to his mind unbidden as he left the steaming remains of his last connection to the underground world behind. He felt dried-up in the throat and hot in the face, but fuck if he would cry now, not after everything else he had managed to get through with his dignity still intact and his head held high. Right now he needed—he just needed some sort of assurance that no matter what happened after this it would be something he would be able to endure, as he had done so many times already that it seemed his entire life was nothing but a proud, unyielding façade of empty strength.

Right now he needed Erwin.

-

His mouth hurt.

The smile had been genuine—the shocked looks on his squad members’ faces had spurred his oddly amicable mood on, and the resulting widening grin just made them more confused and horrified, which was even funnier, which made him smile harder, until it felt like his face was all teeth and raw gums. If this was how it was going to be, he would never smile in public again.

He rubbed the corners of his mouth as he moved through the halls, ducking out of sight whenever he heard or saw someone approach. He stopped smiling several hallways back, feeling tainted somehow, as if he let his mask slip and that he might not be able to control himself if anyone else saw him when he felt like this, so exposed and off-kilter. The fact that Kenny was part of the reason why made him all the more wary and resentful of his own weakness.

Erwin’s plan, as far-fetched and ridiculous as it had seemed while it slowly pieced itself together, had worked. Whatever happened next was still somewhat up to fate, as fickle as it was, though Levi was sure that part of it would still be somewhat under Erwin’s control. It was a given, considering how much Erwin worried about everything. He could sit for hours with that intense expression that had given him deep, premature wrinkles as he stewed in his own thoughts, yet Levi was also fairly sure none of it would be enough to prepare him for the fact that Levi was, in all likelihood, knocked up the creek without a paddle.

He found Erwin in his office, half undressed and slouched at his desk. His jacket and boots were strewn carelessly just inside the door, his gear deposited in a pile beside his desk. The top two buttons of his shirt were undone and there, it seemed, was where sleep overcame him, causing him to knock over a well of ink and some papers that had probably been important but were now completely ruined.

Levi wanted to fix it. He gathered the jacket and boots in his arms, grimacing when he straightened up. After he collected the leather straps he set the entire ensemble on the desk with the rest of Erwin’s things in as neat a pile as he could.

Erwin’s eyes snapped open, alert, immediately focused on Levi.

After a beat they moved toward each other at the same time. Levi leaned over the pile of boots and jackets and kissed him, ignoring the pain in his lower back and the bone-deep ache in his arms and legs. He grabbed at Erwin’s shoulders, then his chest, taking a fistful of his bloodied shirt as Erwin half-rose out of his chair and cupped his face with his hand, the knuckles caked with blood and filth.

“You did it,” Levi murmured, groaning when Erwin bit down gently on his lower lip. Levi pushed him back and moved away from the desk, chest heaving. They’d barely kissed and he could feel his heart racing already, his body humming with desire, coursing through his veins as potent as a drug. “You fucking did it.”

“We can’t be sure of that just yet,” Erwin said, as grave and realistic as ever. It made Levi want to clock him in the jaw, and then kiss him again.

“Shut up,” he said, moving around the desk and easing himself into Erwin’s lap. The chair creaked under their combined weight, one of the most satisfying sounds Levi had heard this entire day. Erwin cupped his ass and gave him a gentle squeeze, his smile strained and tired. “Stop that. Listen. Give yourself some credit, Erwin. You’ve done things no one else had the guts to do. I think that counts for something.”

“I appreciate your support,” Erwin replied. "And you’re right, I—I do need to clear my head. I think tonight I’ll just rest up, if you’d care to join me.”

Levi ran the pad of his thumb up and down Erwin’s jaw slowly, taking care not to stray too close to Erwin’s black eye. He didn’t miss the uncomfortable way Erwin tensed underneath his touch. There was more evidence of his torture: the blood crusted at the corner of his mouth, the scrapes on his knuckles.

Erwin probably hadn’t meant anything more than what he said by his request, and Levi knew he deserved a full night’s sleep after all that had happened to him. He also knew that being together again had made him almost uncomfortably horny, and despite his best efforts he’d grown half-hard in Erwin’s lap. Erwin noticed.

“Ignore it,” Levi said, tight-lipped, when Erwin chuckled and ran his hand up Levi’s thigh playfully. “Erwin, I’m serious—you and I both need some sleep. I—”

He seized up, lips moving dumbly before he shut his mouth and clenched his jaw. Erwin stopped smiling, eyes focused in concern on Levi’s face. He didn't say anything, just waited until Levi opened his mouth and tried again to speak.

“Tomorrow,” he said quietly. “. . . There’s something I need to tell you, but it can wait until tomorrow. Okay? Promise me you won’t worry about it tonight.”

“If it’s something urgent—”

“Tomorrow,” Levi insisted. “Alright?”

Erwin sighed. “Alright.” His abdomen tightened up underneath Levi, and before Levi realized it he’d risen to his feet, arm held under Levi’s rear tightly for support. Levi clutched at the back of his shirt, cursing. “I know I’m filthy, and you probably are too. Why don’t we go shower?”

“Put me down,” Levi said, “put me down right now so I can kick your ass.”

Erwin set him down and stepped back out of kicking range, laughing wholeheartedly. Tomorrow, Levi thought as he followed after him. They could worry about the next snarl in Erwin’s plans tomorrow.


	2. Chapter 2

Levi woke before dawn, spurred to consciousness by an intense feeling of panic. In the dark he felt around wildly, not calming until his hand found where Erwin had rolled away during the night so he could settle back down against him.

The adrenaline rush made it impossible for him to go back to sleep. For the next hour he was content with just lying at Erwin’s side and listening to his deep breathing, punctuated by long, unflattering snores. The familiar sound was comforting. His mind eventually drifted elsewhere, wondering again and again exactly how and when he should broach the topic of their impending fatherhood.

Assuming he even was knocked up . . . his heat ending early was not in itself a cause for alarm, except that it had never before ended less than a full day after it started; that was just too quick for him to comfortably pin on an irregular cycle. Not to mention he and Erwin had knotted, he remembered, angry with himself. He had not lost control so much as eagerly kicked it out of bed, of his own volition. As harmless as it might have seemed then, it had been a constant weight on his shoulders ever since. There was no way to truly confirm his suspicions except to wait and see if his next heat would come.

He was loathe to bother Erwin with the topic at all until he could be absolutely sure. Time was not a luxury they could afford, however, and he knew waiting even this long to bring up the mere possibility to Erwin had been wrong, a lie of sorts.

Erwin stirred in his sleep, joints popping as he settled onto his back, the sheet slipping down below his sternum. Even with a black eye and a string of drool running down his chin Levi thought he was beautiful. 

Shortly after dawn broke, Erwin found him slumped against their tub, the stupid beautiful tub Levi took so much pride in and had spent the past twenty minutes retching into with the faucet turned on. He had little else to occupy his time with other than watching the bile-streaked water swirl down the drain in light-headed silence. The only other sensation disrupting the sluggishness was the hot, sickly churning in his gut. His mouth needed to be rinsed of the acrid tang of vomit, but he couldn’t summon the energy to move, and continued to rest his cheek on the cool rim of the tub. 

Erwin’s touch on his shoulder blade was light, rubbing small soothing circles with the pad of his thumb. By his nature, not only as an alpha, Erwin was not one to passively wait for answers. Before he could ask anything Levi stuck his head under the faucet, let the cool water stream across his head, trickle down his face, and fill his ears.

He would not try to pass the sickness off as anything other than what it in all likelihood was: a symptom of pregnancy. An obstacle in Erwin’s path, one that could have been avoided if Levi had just kept a clear head three months ago, rather than throwing caution to the wind and giving himself up to his base desires like a fucking animal.

After his head was quite thoroughly soaked Erwin reached across him to turn the faucet off. Then he combed his fingers through Levi’s sopping hair in a hovering sort of way, taking care to not to pull too hard through the matted knots. “Perhaps you should sleep in,” he said, as Levi suspected he would.

“There’s too much for us to do.”

“You’ve earned the right to rest, Levi,” Erwin said, as if he himself looked any better. His black eye had swollen and darkened further overnight, like a tar-colored smear up the left side of his face.

Erwin’s hand moved to the layer of short bristly hair at the nape of his neck, his touch still light, yet making Levi feel more trapped than he already was. This was an alpha gesture, not quite a assertion of domination, but a subliminal tiptoe in that direction. Between a mated pair a touch like this might well have been the same thing as being bodily pinned down.

Well, if Levi had been waiting for a right time to say what was weighing on his mind, he supposed now was as good as it was going to get.

“I need to tell you something.”

“So I’ve heard.” Erwin’s fingers lifted up a hair’s breadth, momentarily releasing him. “I’m listening.”

“Kenny the Ripper was my uncle. He told me just before he kicked the bucket.” At the lack of any sort of immediate reaction, Levi added irritably, “. . . You probably already figured that, huh?”

“No,” Erwin said. “To be frank, Levi, I just . . . I can’t say I find it particularly surprising, is all.” 

Levi grunted.

Erwin touched him again, and continued to absently squeeze the back of his neck. “What I don’t understand is why it would upset you like this. You weren’t close to him--” 

His fingers fell still. 

“--were you?”

Levi rubbed at his face, his head aching from the lack of sleep. Normally he despised touching his own face; however fastidious he was about his hygiene, his hands never seemed clean enough. Having them near his eyes, nostrils, and especially his mouth was so repulsive that if he had to he would do so only with his spare handkerchief. He needed to wash himself again after this, his face, his hands, more than once.

Erwin knew little of his life before joining the scouting legion, and nothing that pertained to his childhood. If pressed Levi would have spoken about it, but had always been secretly relieved that Erwin never pried. It was too relevant to who Levi was and what he did now for him to just lay bare for anyone. The knowledge was too intimate for anyone, even--especially--Erwin, to pick through from an unaffected point of view, as if reading a report. Telling himself that fucked up childhoods were a dime a dozen in the underground never quite alleviated the sense that there was something fundamental about being a person that he had lost as a child, or perhaps never had at all.

He could not bring to mind the days he sat beside the bed where his mother gradually wasted away, until the morning he awoke to an absence of fitful coughing and her emaciated body lying stiff and inert beside him. No one came to help. His mother’s extended illness had turned away the favor of the numerous men who once seemed so infatuated with her, back when her black hair was smooth and silky and she could speak in a clear sweet voice above a pained whisper. He lost his mother long before that morning; her death was almost a relief, knowing that she no longer suffered, knowing that he no longer had to worry whether he was doing right by her or just making things worse. The uncertainty of what to do with her body, the fear of what would become of him--for the first time in months he felt so painfully alive, and he didn’t know how to live without her guidance.

Under those circumstances Kenny had been a savior of sorts. Through his harsh, unforgiving instruction, he trained Levi in the art of theft, deceit, and murder. Only now did Levi wonder if that was his way of grieving for his sister, and why he didn’t identify himself as Kuchel’s brother to begin with.

Without those skills Levi had no doubt that he would have been preyed upon in the underworld instead. And so he did not regret his path in life; however much it was guided by chance, he thought it would be irresponsible to separate himself from what he knowingly chose for himself, and the consequences thereof.

Kenny had taught him that the hard way.

So, all Levi could say was, “I owe him.”

He knew it had to be unsatisfactory answer to satiate Erwin’s inquisitiveness, but he could trust that Erwin would respect it. Nothing would come from dwelling on the past right now, especially when they had the future to consider. He forced himself to raise his head and sit up, moving gingerly to keep his body from upheaving any more.

_Get on with it already._

“Erwin.”

“Yes?” Erwin’s voice was so gentle.

“There’s something else. I think . . . I think I’m in the family way,” Levi said, and that was it. No preamble, no excuse. What would be the point? His voice shook despite his resolve to be steady, and he immediately ducked his head under the cover of his hands, staring back down at the rim of the tub, head swimming. His eyes couldn’t focus any more than his hands could stop trembling, and a small, helpless laugh bubbled out from his bitter mouth. 

After a long pause he lifted his head again to find Erwin white as a sheet, chin in hand in contemplation with his knuckles pressed against his mouth, perhaps the only restraint he had against laughing helplessly like Levi. His mouth opened once or twice, bloodless lips struggling to form words that never came. His brow furrowed heavily and stayed that way, revealing the deep wrinkles of his face that were not there when he was more composed, more stone-faced, more like a commander than a scared-shitless possible father-to-be.

“Ehm,” he said, his voice thick and rough, “but, ah--your heat--?”

“Ended early,” Levi admitted flatly. “After we tied. I don’t know for certain yet, but . . .” He trailed off.

At this point he saw no use in bellyaching about how sorry he was for waiting so long to say so. Erwin likewise did not demand an explanation--he didn’t respond at all for a long while. His eyes stayed lowered to stare at the rim of the tub, where his hand fell to rest close to Levi’s chest, fingers tense. 

Then, without a word, he leaned in close, and on instinct Levi tilted his head back to give him access to the vulnerable expanse of his throat. He bit the tip of his tongue to keep himself from sighing in contentment at the brush of Erwin’s hair against the underside of his chin, the warmth of his breath as he inhaled. 

After a pause Erwin released his breath, then sat back, looking down at Levi with a weary, almost helpless sort of resignation. “You smell sweet,” he said. Levi pushed him away by the chest. “You’ve always smelled sweet, Levi.”

“Ugh.”

Erwin held fast to his hand, his grip like a vice. He held tight for a long time, grinding his teeth as if contemplating what else to say. Instead he smiled thinly and stood up, balancing himself a little clumsily on the rim of the tub. He turned the faucet back on, then held out his hand for Levi to take. “Help me undress, please.”

“We bathed last night. You’re not seriously--”

“And you’ll join me, certainly? I didn’t think you were the sort to say no to a little extra cleanliness, Levi.”

Levi sucked his teeth in displeasure but did as he was told, unbuttoning Erwin’s shirt and folding it carefully. He set their clothes on the foot stool by the door, then grabbed an extra bar of soap before turning back to the tub with a grimace.

The tub was just too narrow for both of them to sit comfortably in it. Levi had to squeeze his knees together to fit between Erwin’s legs. Slowly the tub filled with water, so tepid that it did nothing to stop Levi from shivering or goosebumps from prickling across his skin. Erwin was much warmer. Levi leaned back against him carefully, mindful of the other injuries he’d sustained while they were apart.

“What’s clean about this? I spent the morning puking my guts in here.” With his legs stretched all the way under the water Levi could press his feet flat against the side of the tub, under the gushing faucet, where the water was the least chill. “This is disgusting.”

He started when Erwin splashed his back with water, scooping up a second handful, then a third, before reaching under Levi’s arm to take the bar of soap.

“Do you,” Erwin murmured against his neck, soapy hands running up Levi’s fronts before moving back to his sides, “have any idea what we’re going to do?”

Levi said nothing. He let Erwin lather his back, and rinse it with the stagnant water they’d been sitting in without any more complaints.

“. . . Do _you_?” he replied.

They bathed in silence after that. After they drying off Levi made to put his own uniform on. Erwin stopped him a stern look. His stomach, while still queasy, was not as bad as earlier. Yet as much as he hated to admit it, he was exhausted, and the pounding in his head had only grown despite their uneventful bath.

“I’ll check in on you later,” Erwin said as Levi helped him get dressed instead, making his displeasure evident with every sharp tug. He rolled Erwin’s right sleeve and pinned it. The emptiness under the material was strange; still, it was a relief to have the rest of Erwin in one piece.

The dressing and fussing done, Levi smoothed down the front of Erwin’s jacket and made sure his tie was straight. Erwin stooped to kiss him halfway through, smelling strongly of soap and his natural alpha musk, and Levi resolved that at some point during the day he was going to fuck Erwin silly. For the time being he let him off with a kiss in return. Erwin remained where he was, staring down at Levi with a half-smile that was not reflected in his downcast eyes.

“The scouting legion needs you, Levi,” he said. “This . . . this is not the right time for a child.”

“I know. See you later.”

After Erwin was gone Levi lay curled under the bed sheets. He knew, he had always known what Erwin’s answer would be, what the right thing would be, and yet . . . all he could think was that this might be the only time he and Erwin would have the chance to start a family, and how selfish and stupid that was. If he wanted a normal domestic life that badly he could have transferred to the military police a long time ago.

A life like that would have been pointless without Erwin. But he never knew until after following him, after coming to love him, that he could ever want that kind of life. 

Moping around wouldn’t solve anything. He retrieved his clothes from where Erwin had set them aside earlier and got dressed. Erwin told him to rest, and Levi reasoned that since he found the most peace when doing something productive he should be up and about, taking care of things that needed to be done. And right now he needed to put his squad in order.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes this took me ten months to write. Expect season 2 of the anime before chapter three at this rate. Which is where Jean will finally appear in this series! 
> 
> Thanks for reading uou


End file.
